The Great Forest National Park

The Great Forest National Park (GFNP) proposal is a vision for a multi-tiered park system for bush users and bush lovers alike, on Melbourne’s doorstep.

It is a park that will protect and maintain important ecosystem functions critical for the health and well being of all Victorians. The proposal intends to amalgamate a group of smaller parks and add a recreational and ecosystem management plan overlay. The GFNP’s gateway in Healesville is only 60 kilometres from Melbourne’s MCG and stretches from Kinglake through to the Baw Baws and north-east up to Eildon. The proposal is backed by 30 years of research from Laureate Professor David Lindenmayer AO and his team from the Australian National University. The Park proposal adds approximately 355,000 hectares to the current 165,000 hectares in reserve. This will bring Melbourne up to a little over 500,000 hectares of reserve, nearly half the size of Sydney’s reserve system. It is an ambitious project that is gaining momentum by the day.

The GFNP proposal contains the largest tract of Mountain Ash forest on mainland Australia. The towering Mountain Ash tree is the tallest flowering plant in the world and has been historically recorded at heights that supersede the Redwoods of California. Adding to the regions list of attractions is the lands geographic attributes like a 370 million year old giant volcano caldron that is adorned in waterfalls and rainforest and boasts incredible panoramas from its jagged peaks on Mt Torbrek and the Cathedral Ranges. Towns like Marysville actually sit in the volcanos caldron. So large was this volcano that when it blew it altered the entire planets weather patterns.

It is an idea whose time has come.

There is a strong campaign happening to encourage the main political parties to commit to the vision before the November 29 election.

To build capacity to see the dream realised, the Great Forest National Park team have organised a crowd funding campaign.